Assessment of Early Diastolic Intraventricular Pressure Difference in Children by Blood Speckle-Tracking Echocardiography

Background: The lack of reliable echocardiographic techniques to assess diastolic function in children is a ma-jor clinical limitation. Our aim was to develop and validate the intraventricular pressure difference (IVPD) calcu-lation using blood speckle-tracking (BST) and investigate the method's potential role in the assessment of diastolic function in children. Methods: Blood speckle-tracking allows two-dimensional angle-independent blood flow velocity estimation. Blood speckle-tracking images of left ventricular (LV) inflow from the apical 4-chamber view in 138 controls, 10 patients with dilated cardiomyopathies (DCMs), and 21 patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathies (HCMs)